Born in 1945 in San Francisco, Stephen Traxler followed a rather unorthodox yet not entirely unfamiliar path into the world of low budget horror and exploitation filmmaking. In a similar fashion to the likes of earl exploitation cinema svengali Barry Mahon and gore effects maestro the great Tom Savini, Traxler eventually found his way into filmmaking following a period of time spent in military service. A fan of the cinema since childhood, Traxler was unfortunately forced to put his ambitions temporarily on the back burner when he was stationed to Vietnam in 1966, where he participated in active combat. Following his return in 1967 however, Traxler eventually revived his cinematic aspirations and just over a decade later wound up directing, writing and producing the 1978 monster movie
Spawn Of The Slithis. In sharp contrast to Tom Savini whose grim experiences as a combat photographer in Vietnam were a direct influence on the gory effects he later engineered for the screen, Traxler took a completely different approach. Indeed,
Spawn Of The Slithis (sometimes referred to by the abbreviated alternative title
Slithis) is essentially a comparatively mild PG rated horror yarn, strongly and deliberately reminiscent of the radioactive monster pictures which had been popular during the B movie golden years of the fifties.
Shot in just twelve days predominantly on location in Venice, California,
Spawn Of The Slithis was put together on a shoestring budget estimated to be in the region of $100,000, most of which was coughed up by Iowa based investor Dick Davis, who had previously had his fingers burned after investing in Douglas Curtis' interesting but sadly unsuccessful dark comedy
The Hazing (aka -
The Curious Case Of The Campus Corpse) (1977). Fortunately
Spawn Of The Slithis was not destined for the same fate. On the contrary Traxler's low budget effort would become an improbable box office hit in 1978, thanks to a goofy yet creative promotional campaign which saw cinema patrons being issued with paper handout "survival kits". Today these "survival kit" handouts are much sought after by fans of the film. Meanwhile the titular Slithis monster itself even made a string of special promotional appearances at various drive-in theatre's, the monstrous creature being portrayed by whichever unfortunate member of the theatre staff happened to be a good fit for the monster suit. Buoyed by these silly yet amusing promotional stunts,
Spawn Of The Slithis proved to be a financially lucrative sleeper hit at the US box-office and later found an even wider audience through home video and television syndication, winning over a minor cult following. While
Spawn Of The Slithis remains his only notable credit as a director, Stephen Traxler would eventually move onto bigger things. Indeed, in recent years Traxler has worked on a number of major studio productions including
Waterworld,
Windtalkers,
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde and
Be Cool is various capacities including associate producer, production supervisor and second unit director.
Spawn Of The Slithis takes place in and around the Venice Beach region of California, which begins playing host to mysterious and terrifying events, starting with the discovery of several dead dogs, the corpses of which are left heavily mutilated. Before long whoever or indeed whatever is responsible abandons canine's and moves onto people, as several Venice Beach residents are attacked and killed in the night, their bodies also left horribly mangled. Keen to play down these incidents and keep the already fearful local population from descending into mass panic, the Venice Beach police and authorities disingenuously pass the killings off as the work a depraved cult of psychopaths operating in the area.
One of the locals who is unconvinced by this tall tale happens to be Wayne Connors, a jaded local science teacher who is looking for an excuse to cast aside the day to day tedium of his vocation. Despite the protests of his sceptical girlfriend Jeff, the inquiring Wayne begins digging and soon makes the terrifying discovery that the killings plaguing Venice Beach are the work of a monstrous mutant creature, spawned by a variety of mud known as "Slithis", which has been contaminated with nuclear radiation. Wayne soon finds an unlikely ally in the shape of Jamaican seadog Chris Alexander, and when the authorities predictably dismiss Wayne's story, the two men are left with no other option but to confront the Slithis monster themselves in a desperate bid to put a stop to its killing spree.
On its most basic level
Spawn Of The Slithis essentially stands as a radioactive monster movie in the fifties B-movie mould, fused to the more exploitatively minded filmmaking sensibilities of the late seventies. While this may sound like a bit of a mismatch on paper, it really does have to be said that in practise director, writer and producer Stephen Traxler actually makes a decent job of it. Indeed, while
Spawn Of The Slithis is hardly a perfect or even a particularly significant seventies genre film by any extent of the imagination, I nevertheless doubt that many who have had the pleasure of seeing it will dispute the assertion that it is seldom anything less than engaging. Beginning promisingly with the gruesome discovery of two heavily mutilated dog carcasses, Traxler does a serviceable job of teasing and viewer is the films early stages as the marauding Slithis monster regularly rises from the depths to wreak mayhem. Traxler actually peppers the films first act with a fairly generous helping of monster madness, delivering several amusing, attention-grabbing set-pieces as the radioactive beastie invades the home of and kills a curmudgeonly old couple, then later does its bit to cut down Venice Beach's transient community by coming ashore in order to slaughter a drunken bum.
In a wise move Traxler rather astutely opts to keep the revelation of the monsters appearance largely saved up for the films finale, instead adeptly conveying its presence in these early scenes through the occasional momentary glimpse of its grotesque visage and the silhouette of its monstrous form, both of which are accompanied by the sound of giant squelchy footsteps on the soundtrack. In another rather more ambitious move an attempt is also made to intersperse the Slithis monster attacks with some audacious monsters eye POV shots. However, these shots fall flat due to the fact that it looks as if the effect has been achieved by placing the neck of a plastic or glass bottle over the camera lens and frankly the result is just a blurry mess which detracts from the otherwise surprisingly intensity of the Slithis monsters onslaughts. However, this iffy POV camera work certainly raises a few laughs and if nothing else you certainly have to admire the effort given the films low budget.
While the simplistic narrative of
Spawn Of The Slithis undoubtedly remains firmly rooted in the atom age monster traditions of the fifties, to his credit Stephen Traxler does not shrink when it comes to making some modestly gory concessions to the bloodthirsty tastes of the late seventies horror movie audience. While
Spawn Of The Slithis only received a PG rating for its original US theatrical run, it is well worth remembering that this came at a time when the American PG rating still actually meant something. As it happens
Spawn Of The Slithis is one of several American horror pictures of its era, John Frankenheimer's underrated mutant bear opus
Prophecy (1979) and David Schmoeller's offbeat, disturbing
Tourist Trap (1979) being two other notable examples, that really pushes the boundaries of the PG rating. Indeed while the actual monster attacks themselves are not especially graphic, mainly limited to a little blood-streaked slow motion clawing, Traxler is not shy about delivering fleeting yet fairly grisly aftermath shots of the Slithis monsters mutilated victims. On the whole it's fair to say that these moments must have made quite an indelible impression on any innocent-minded youngster's who caught
Spawn Of The Slithis during its successful 1978 theatrical run.
While the appearances of the Slithis monster itself undoubtedly deliver the requisite goods, when it comes to the handling of the expositional portions of the film it does regrettably have to be said that Stephen Traxler does a decidedly mixed job. Indeed, it does have to be conceded that whenever the titular Slithis beast is off screen,
Spawn Of The Slithis does have a tendency to drag slightly. Much of the blame for this undoubtedly lies with the rather mundane standard of most of the films central performances. Top-billed Alan Blanchard is particularly poor in his starring role as jaded science teacher Wayne Connors who becomes obsessed with defeating the radioactive monster laying waste to Venice Beach, giving an improbably bland performance and coming across as a dull, boorish male lead. As a direct result of Blanchard's uninspired efforts the dialogue heavy scenes which occur slap band in the middle of the film, in which Wayne grills various members of Venice Beach's derelict community for information about the monster are a real chore to sit through and slightly derail the films momentum as a result. Meanwhile female lead Judy Motulsky is equally poor in her role as Wayne's exasperated girlfriend Jeff, and the many shared scenes to two have are not helped by the fact that the onscreen chemistry between the pair is practically non-existent. Given the low quality of their performances it will probably come as little surprise to learn that following
Spawn Of The Slithis neither Blanchard or Motulsky ever appeared in anything else. Fortunately some of the supporting performances are a little more colourful with low-level character actor Mello Alexandria proving particularly likeable as the Jamaican fisherman Chris Alexander who assists Wayne in battling the monster. Elsewhere John Hatfield is suitably intense as the down and out alcoholic who barely survives a close encounter with the monster, and unknown Alejandro Voss raises some unintentional yet nevertheless welcome laughs as he grimaces, growls and rolls his eyes like a lunatic in a comically OTT performance as the local police chief.
Although the poor quality of Blanchard and Motulsky's central performances and a few dry, talky patches cannot fail to undermine
Spawn Of The Slithis slightly, fortunately the film does possess various other non-monster related strengths which are enough to prevent it ever descending into anything resembling tedium. First and foremost I feel it is important to stress that although this writer expected this to be a cheap and cheerful monster yarn,
Spawn Of The Slithis actually possesses excellent production values for a film cobbled together for the most part in less than a fortnight on a budget of just $100,000, and is blessed with the professional, cinematic appearance of a film made for at least ten times that amount. The work of cinematographer Robert Caramico is particularly good, making striking, surprisingly desolate use of the films weather-beaten shooting locations in the Venice Beach, Marina Del Ray and Santa Monica regions of California. Looking back Caramico's presence behind the camera must have been viewed as something of a coup for the film at the time, as in the years prior to
Spawn Of The Slithis, Caramico has already lensed numerous horror and exploitation efforts of varying levels of note including Stephen C. Apostolof's kinky
Orgy Of The Dead (1965) which was penned by infamous "bad" movie maker Edward D. Wood Jr, Ted V. Mikels' racial exploitation picture
The Black Klansman (1966), Harry Essex's bizarre monster movie
Octaman (1971), Richard Blackman's offbeat cult favourite
Lemora: A Child's Tale Of The Supernatural (1973), Jack Arnold's blaxploitation western
Boss Nigger (1975) and Tobe Hooper's sorely underrated essay in Southern Fried horror
Death Trap (aka -
Eaten Alive) (1977). In the years following his work on
Spawn Of The Slithis, Caramico would promptly settle down into a busy career in television throughout the course of the eighties and nineties, working on numerous successful series' including
The Waltons,
Falcon Crest,
Dallas and
Harry And The Hendersons.
Using Caramico's bleak, moody photography as his base, Traxler succeeds in weaving a reasonably effective and fairly haunting atmosphere as he depicts Venice Beach as a community with a decidedly dark and sleazy underbelly in the shape of its corrupt, pen-pushing officials and forgotten, alcohol blighted homeless community. Meanwhile, in addition to the obvious and readily apparent influence
Spawn Of The Slithis derives from the radioactive monster pictures of the fifties, the film also notably borrows a notable leaf or two out of the
Jaws playbook. Indeed,
Spawn Of The Slithis borrows directly from Spielberg's classic blockbuster the motif of the towns police and officials attempting to play down and cover up the marine menace, in this case by fabricating a story about a "mutilation death cult" in order to explain away the spate of horrific Slithis-related deaths and avoid sending the community into panic. However, the feckless Alan Blanchard is certainly no Roy Scheider and Traxler only ever really pays lip service to this particular aspect of the films narrative. In addition you really do have the ponder whether the average person would actually find the notion of a psychotic cult on a murder spree any less alarming than that of a radioactive marine monster on the rampage. Meanwhile on a similar note the explanation that the Slithis monster was spawned by mud contaminated by nuclear radiation is contrived and improbable at best, although in fairness the same thing can also be said of most of the fifties monster romps which furnished
Spawn Of The Slithis with the majority of its inspiration.
At any rate, after sagging somewhat during its slightly drab and over-talkative middle act,
Spawn Of The Slithis recovers in time to deliver an eventful and enjoyable final third. Indeed,
Spawn Of The Slithis embarks on its home lap in style as the Slithis monster emerges from beneath the waves to dish out a gruesome fate to a lecherous middle-aged boat owner and the precocious teenage girl he has bought back to his nautical bachelor pad, in a scene which registers as the films arguable highlight. When we are finally afforded the privilege of a proper, decent look at it, the titular scaly green Slithis monster actually turns out to be a reasonably impressive creation, sporting an appropriately fearsome appearance and looking quite different from the rather comical beast featured on the films original theatrical poster. Once the Slithis monster finally takes centre stage, Traxler does a sterling job of maintaining tension and excitement, serving up an engaging finale which packs a surprising, mean-spirited sting in its tail as Wayne and fisherman Chris Alexander take to the waves in order to face Slithis in a surprisingly intense and brutal battle to the death. However, this otherwise well-staged climax is hampered slightly by some overly dark nighttime photography and the less than welcome return of Traxler's funny yet essentially inept bottle neck POV shots.
So to summarise,
Spawn Of The Slithis, far from being a low-budget abomination, actually emerges from the murky depths as an entertaining and mostly well put together late seventies update of the radioactive monster theme, which had of course enjoyed its celluloid heyday a full two decades previously. While a padded, excessively talky middle act and rather lacking central performances do admittedly derail the films momentum slightly, Stephen Traxler more than redeems these shortcomings with his combination of a memorably loathsome monster, some PG-friendly yet nevertheless fairly strong gore and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, an effectively bleak, dilapidated atmosphere woven around the films coastal shooting locations. Therefore it has to be said that in conclusion
Spawn Of The Slithis, while certainly not without fault, stands as a film largely deserving of its modest yet surprising box-office success. Deftly overcoming the obvious constraints of its meagre budget,
Spawn Of The Slithis registers as a disarmingly accomplished and, above all, enjoyable, earnestly engaging revival of the radioactive beastie subgenre.
Mildly Recommended.
To date
Spawn Of The Slithis has yet to be released officially on DVD. However, those that do wish to check out Traxler's film can always attempt to track down either the rare UK pre-cert VHS release or the easier to find eighties NTSC format US tape, both of which were issued under the films abbreviated alternative title Slithis on the Media label. It is also worth noting that Media actually released two separate UK pre-cert tapes of
Spawn Of The Slithis, one of which came in a cardboard carton case and the other in a big box. However, from what I can gather it doesn't seem that any differences between the two versions extended beyond the variation in packaging.
Finally I would like to mention that Stephen Thrower's brilliant, much acclaimed book
Nightmare USA also contains a highly entertaining and informative chapter relating to the production of
Spawn Of The Slithis. Just another good reason why horror and exploitation fans should add this wonderful tome to their library!
DVD
Certainly everyone else I've spoken to rates it highly, and even after owning it for over a year I still find myself with my nose in it constantly. Personally I think Stephen Thrower has a really engaging, down to earth "by a fan for the fans" writing style which really speaks to me and I'm eagerly awaiting both the mooted follow up to Nightmare USA and his proposed Jess Franco book. Needless to say I loved his Fulci related tome Beyond Terror too and that is also a much cherished part of the Smith library.
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DVD